It's the Plum Rain season, which means six kinds of rain (rated "hard drizzle" to "tropical torrent") continuously over the course of three weeks in May and June. Last night it let up enough to allow safe driving, so I decided to test the theory that snakes also come out during the rain, not only right before and after it. Lo and behold, I found seven snakes during two hours of cruising, so QED. None of them was interesting enough to warrant getting me and the photo gear out into the downpour, and as I was herping solo, there was nobody to hold the umbrella. I did find one humongous, four-foot Manybanded krait (Bungarus multicinctus) which, alas, happened to cross the road at a spot where I couldn't park the car, so I had to let it go. But fate did present me with a nice photo op after all, in the shape of this glorious raindrop-adorned Taiwan Habu (Protobothrops mucrosquamatus) sitting right in the middle of the road. I've seen wet snakes before, but never covered in single drops like this one. I wonder if the semi-keeled scales might have contributed to the phenomenon? (Sorry about the crappy pictures, thanks to the rain it was a bit of a rush job)
Sparkling Habu
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- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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- Jason Mintzer
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Re: Sparkling Habu
That is an awesome snake.
Re: Sparkling Habu
Great find! THanks for posting!
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Sparkling Habu
Thanks, guys. The habu is actually so ubiquitous here that I'm too "meh" to take pix of it anymore, unless it does something special. But seeing as it seems to enjoy a certain following here, I'll photograph a few more next time I come across them....which will probably be tonight.
Re: Sparkling Habu
Deo volenteHans Breuer (twoton) wrote:Thanks, guys. The habu is actually so ubiquitous here that I'm too "meh" to take pix of it anymore, unless it does something special. But seeing as it seems to enjoy a certain following here, I'll photograph a few more next time I come across them....which will probably be tonight.
Nice shots, btw...this rain clearly has its advantages.
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Re: Sparkling Habu
I think I'm safe in guessing that most of us are North American, so *anything* from Asia, Africa or Europe is a treat 'specially for those of us w/out the money to ever go herping internationally.
- Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Sparkling Habu
I know, but one has to be delicate - there's always the danger of flooding the forum with the same species over and over again......see my Bamboo viper posts
- Jason Mintzer
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Re: Sparkling Habu
I never get tired of the bamboo vipers, keep them coming.